Title: Quality audits and their value added

Authors: Franka Piskar

Addresses: Sanolabor, d.d., Leskoskova 4, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

Abstract: For many organisations in the process of implementing an ISO 9001 or ISO 14001 quality management system, a significant part of the effort includes value-added audits. This paper examines what is added value of quality audit, how to measure it and what kind of different quality audits do we know. We developed a framework to assist quality managers in organising internal quality audits. These kinds of audits are also being established in schools as evaluations and in healthcare as self-assessment or accreditation. The challenge for these institutions is to take over best practice presented in this paper and instructions for the implementation of value-added quality auditing.

Keywords: audits; quality audits; value-added auditing; evaluation; self-assessment; ISO 9001; quality management systems; QMS; continuous improvement.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSS.2006.008159

International Journal of Services and Standards, 2006 Vol.2 No.1, pp.69 - 83

Published online: 22 Nov 2005 *

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